Let the Rivers Flow: Called to Minister In Jesus Name
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There’s a place deep within the heart of many of God’s children today that only the moving of the Holy Spirit can satisfy. Jesus spoke about this in the book of John:
If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water… this spake he of the Spirit… (John 7:37–39, KJV)This life-giving river of the living water of God’s Spirit will increasingly flow through His people as we seek Him, desiring that He move in and through us to enable us to bring glory to His Name. One of the ways God’s Spirit is presently moving is through open meetings and body ministry as His people come together as the church of the living God.
Are you longing to be used by God and to see others used by Him when meeting together as believers? Do you long to see and hear God move in and through His many-membered body, as the church meets together? Not only is this possible, but you can help make it happen as you allow God to open your heart to the workable, time-honoured, scriptural principles laid out in Let the Rivers Flow.
It is time! The body of Christ is rising up and will bring Him great glory as we let His life-giving river flow in and through us and answer His call to minister in Jesus’s Name.
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Let the Rivers Flow - Rev. M.L. (Lori) Byers
endnotes
IN APPRECIATION
First and foremost, I want to thank the Lord for His goodness, His mercy, His love and for all He has done in my life. I also want to thank Him for Phil and Mildred Tretwold, Don and Millie Ross and others, who during years of life-changing ministry, have encouraged and taught God’s people to come forth in the call of God through open meetings and body ministry. Fruit remains, as many who learned to minister in those meetings are in ministry today and are also teaching others to do the same.
I also thank God for Dorothy Carbert, my friend and co-laborer in the Gospel. Since 1994 we have held open meetings together and we praise God for each person who has been touched by Him and who is coming forth in the call of God. Thank you Dorothy for all your support, prayers encouragement and typing as this book has been in progress and now is finally written. I thank God for you and for your friendship.
I thank the Lord for Jane Martin, who along with her husband Larry, traveled many miles with the NTOMI Team. Thank you Jane for your willing heart and for your care in the initial editing of this book.
I also thank the Lord for Velma White, who has worked together in the Gospel with Dorothy and I since 2000. I have so appreciated her willingness and all the typing which was done to finalize the manuscript. Thank you Velma for all your hard work and encouragement regarding this book.
Without a team, little is accomplished. I also thank the Lord for the NTOMI Team and the Body of Christ. Together, may we His people see the increasing ongoing manifestation of God’s presence and His visitation, as we glorify Him and Let the rivers flow
(John 7:38).
INTRODUCTION
There is a hunger for more of God in the hearts of many of His people today. So many long for greater liberty and the freedom of the moving of the Holy Spirit in their midst. Some believers, such as those in many of our northern villages in Canada, have no evangelical church, gathering place, or pastor and have held little hope of this changing in the near future. They have shared how they have felt like a forgotten people and have so longed for true fellowship with believers and teaching about the things of God. Other believers have not found the freedom they are longing for in the traditional church of their area. There are yet others, who represent the traditional church, who are looking for a way to have more open meetings and have themselves expressed a longing to experience this type of freedom.
It is for these precious hungry children of God that this handbook has been written. It is my prayer that many readers will lay hold of the scriptural principles addressed in this book and that it will be a blessing and encouragement for those who long to let the river of God flow afresh, in and through His people, as they meet together in Jesus’ Name.
ONE
Treasures in Earthen Vessels
There are many types of godly meetings which can be participated in by God’s children. Prayer meetings, discussion groups, Bible studies and the more traditional
Sunday Church meeting, as well as open meetings are all examples of this. The focus of this handbook is on open meetings which includes body ministry. In this type of meeting the order, content and duration of the meeting are not usually prearranged. The group, as well as the leader in charge, endeavour throughout the meeting to be led by the Holy Spirit in terms of who will minister at any given time. Group participation is encouraged and open sharing is valued as the different participants seek to give what the Lord has laid on their hearts under the direction and anointing of the Holy Spirit.
My first experience with open meetings was as a young person in my very early twenties. God led me into fellowship with a group of believers who met in a hall in Calgary. They were on fire for the Lord and loved Jesus with all their hearts. Church was not simply a building we went to on Sunday—we were the Church. Christianity was a way of life, twenty-four/seven, not just something we did.
We learned to seek God with all our hearts. When we gathered together, it was exciting! We never knew what God was going to do or who He was going to use. We could hardly wait!
I remember God moving in awesome ways. The praise and worship was incredible. Many times as people would play instruments in the Spirit, prophetic songs would come forth and we would dance before the Lord with all our might as the holy, awesome presence of the Lord would come into our midst. Sometimes the Song of the Lord (a song in which the words and the music are spontaneous and are given and directed by the Lord as the individual or group yields to God) would go on for hours as the Holy Spirit moved and touched hearts and lives. The Song of the Lord was Spirit-led, not orchestrated by man. Prophetic songs would come and the Song of the Bride and the Bridegroom was freely heard (spontaneous Spirit-given and Spirit-led songs in which Christ, as the Heavenly Bridegroom, and the Church, as His prospective Bride sing responsively to each other as God moves prophetically through different people). Sometimes passing vehicles would come and roll down their windows and the people on the streets would be touched by the power and the beauty of what God was doing as the Song of the Lord was sung by His people.
I also remember how we all sought God on Saturdays. Most of us (especially the young people) spent the day in fasting and prayer. We did not do this because we had to
—we wanted to! We wanted to be ready for Sunday and to be prepared for what God would do, whether in us or through us, as He moved by His Spirit. None of us wanted to miss out either on what God was doing or on what He was about to do!
I remember a nine year old boy getting up with a scripture. As the anointing came upon him, he began to exhort and then to prophesy the Word of the Lord like a prophet of old. The gifts of the Spirit flowed freely in those meetings and God used young and old alike, to preach, to pray and to prophesy. People were thrilled as different ones began to come forth in God. Most of the young people from that church (including myself) are in full-time